Re: steel cable as an alternative for the space elevator?

I don't know enought to correct it, but it seems awfully
Earth-centric. Natural perhaps but still...
Also, this statement caught my untrained eye:
Chemical energy storage (batteries, fuel cells or internal
combustion engines) will not work- hydrogen/Oxygen is the chemical
fuel with the best energy/mass ratio, but will not lift its own
weight all the way to GEO.
rick jones

--
firebug n, the idiot who tosses a lit cigarette out his car window
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... :)

Of course it's Earth centric, we're talking about a cable that extends to
the surface of the earth who's center of mass (including counterweight) is
at geosynchrynous altitude, so the end of the cable at the earth is
stationary (obviously this assumes an orbit over the equator). Getting from
the surface of the earth to GEO without using rockets would be a good thing.

I've not done the math myself, but it sounds true since using rocket engines
you can't create a LOX/LH2 SSTO that would take you all the way to GEO (even
getting to LEO this way is a subject of intense debate). You'd surely want
a way to transmit power to the climber from the ground, from GEO, or from
both. I'd think that you'd want to beam power to the climber using lasers
or microwaves.
Jeff

That's an infinite stage to orbit vehicle. I haven't done the math for that
one, but I'm sure it would make a good problem for an aerospace engineering
class.
I picked the SSTO comparison since I figured a space elevator climber
wouldn't be dropping parts on the way up.
Jeff

Here's a puzzle for all you contributors to this debate: who started off
the debate with soc.culture.zimbabwe in the crosspostings, and why have none of
you checked where you have been sending your posts to? Please do not invade our
Zimbabwean newsgroup with your irrelevant utterances.

It would appear that these people are either ignorant or have reading
difficulties:
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com
snipped-for-privacy@org.trash (Rand Simberg)
They are still crossposting to soc.culture.zimbabwe despite appeals not
to do so. Interestingly, four of them are using gmail.com addressess --
perhaps this is significant.

Some time ago, I began to simply ignore all postings from places like
Hotmail.com and Gmail.com.
Life has been easier since then.
I may have missed a modest number of intelligent individuals, but don't
regret that in the big picture.

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